Armchair Heartbreak
by withered sage
Summary: During a visit to her aunt's house Krissy discovers the Supernatural series.


_I don't own Supernatural. I wish I did own Sam and Dean, though. Mmm._

* * *

When the car pulls up to the curb outside of 314 Wesson Street, the drizzle that's been going all day has turned into a downpour.

Great.

Aiden turns the key in the ignition and the engine splutters to a halt, leaving only the sound of rain pounding down on the windshield and the groans of three stiff teenagers who have been stuck in a car for _way_ too long.

"Well, we're here," he says, rolling his neck.

Krissy, who is feeling pretty snarky after their seven hour drive, opens her mouth to congratulate him on stating the obvious but is cut off by a humongous sneeze. And not the dry kind either.

"Ugh," she groans, fishing a tissue out of the wad that's stuffed into the passenger door. She blows her nose noisily, prompting a disgusted noise from Josephine, and stuffs it into the plastic bag at her feet where it joins a multitude of other used tissues.

"I swear, if you get me sick I'll kick your ass," the other girl warns, stretching from her position in the backseat.

Annoyance curls in Krissy's gut. "Shut up, Josephine," she growls, glaring at her friend in the rearview mirror.

Aiden cuts in before she can respond. "Come on, guys, don't start. I doubt Krissy's aunt will appreciate having to deal with a cat fight before we're even through the door. Can we just get inside?"

Both girls sigh and roll their eyes, but they grudgingly open their doors, Krissy kicking hers open with maybe a little more force than strictly necessary. Aiden is already opening the trunk and pulling their duffels out of the upper compartment, so she turns and trudges up the walkway to her aunt's house, not even bothering to shield herself from the rain.

She reaches the porch and punches the doorbell, joined shortly by her companions. After a minute the door opens, and Krissy has to blink at the face she sees through the screen door.

Aunt Catherine looks a lot like her dad.

She ignores the residual grief that tightens around her heart and smiles at her aunt, who smiles back excitedly.

"Krissy! Come in, come in, get out of this rain!" Aunt Catherine pushes the screen door open and ushers them inside. The three teenagers pile into the entryway, blinking water out of their eyes while she closes the door behind them.

Krissy takes a moment to observe her surroundings. The walls are painted a warm red that complements the dark wood of the floor, which is strewn with rugs. Glowing lamps enhance the warm atmosphere. Folksy-sounding acoustic guitar trickles through the house from unseen speakers in another room.

Aunt Catherine has always, in Krissy's mind, been tied to a comfy feeling at odds with the sparseness of her father.

Making a mental note to check the devil's traps and wards her dad placed around the house once she gets a moment, she turns to meet her aunt's outstretched arms.

"Oh, it's been too long, sweetheart! God, you've gotten so tall!" Krissy finds herself subjected to the older woman's appraising eye before being pulled into another hug. "Mmmm, I've missed you, girlie."

Her aunt steps back and looks over her shoulder expectantly. Krissy takes the hint.

"Aunt Catherine, this is Aiden and Josephine, the friends I told you about."

"Of course, of course, it's so nice to meet you both!" Catherine gushes, fluttering over to shake each of their hands. "Well, I'm sure you three are ready to rest after that drive. Why don't I show you to your rooms?" Everyone nods in agreement. When Aiden bends over to pick up their bags her aunt sends Krissy a significant look, waggling her eyebrows in a way that makes the teenager roll her eyes and bite down a smile.

They follow Catherine up the stairs and down the hall, whose wooden floorboards creak under their feet. Krissy and Josephine are shown into a room with a twin bed and an air mattress on the floor and Aiden is shown into one across the hall.

"I'll leave you guys to get settled. I'm thinking dinner in an hour—what do you guys say to pizza?"

"That sounds great," Aiden replies with a charming grin, and Krissy's aunt bustles downstairs to order for them.

Without a word, the three teenagers go into their rooms, chalking devil's traps onto the ceilings and setting guns and canisters of salt in easy-to-reach places. Krissy sneaks into her aunt's room to check the traps her dad painted with invisible ink over the door and windows, then pries up the loose floorboards to see if the salt lines he imbedded underneath them are unbroken. Satisfied, she meets Aiden and Josephine by the stairs, and they head down to join Catherine.

* * *

"Krissy, sweetheart, you sound a little stuffed up."

The sixteen year old grins ruefully at her aunt. "Yeah, I caught a cold somewhere along the way. Nothing major, though." Her words are undermined by yet another sneeze, followed quickly by a hacking cough.

Catherine quirks a concerned eyebrow at her. "Maybe you shouldn't go out to the university tomorrow. The weather's only supposed to get colder for the weekend."

Krissy grimaces. Yuck. Her dad always said he hated 75 percent of the weather in Ohio, and she's starting to see why.

"That's probably a good idea," Aiden says, ignoring the irritated glare his girlfriend sends him.

Josephine nods. "Yeah, we'll be fine without you. We can tell you about it when we get back."

One of the cover stories Victor (the bastard) had given the group was that of high school students visiting a particular college. In this case, however, it happens to be true. Cincinnati is pushing for Josephine to come to them, and Aiden is in the market for colleges as well. Both of them are signed up for a three and a half day visiting program that will have them shadow and bunk with current students. Krissy was going to go and tour the campus with them before check-in and then spend the rest of the time with her aunt. Now it looks like she'll be missing the sight-seeing portion of her trip.

"Fine," she sighs, too worn down to argue further. In reality, chilling in her aunt's cozy house sounds like a nice break from the rigors of her normal life.

A little while later the trio retreats upstairs, thanking Catherine for the meal. Aiden lingers next to the girls' door, tapping his fingers against Krissy's waist. Josephine rolls her eyes and pushes past him into the room, pointedly ignoring the pair.

Aiden's face is getting closer and closer to hers, smirking in his annoyingly adorable way. Krissy raises an eyebrow playfully at him, then sighs and leans away.

"I don't want to get you sick."

His lips quirk in a half smile, and he leans down and kisses her forehead instead. "Sweet dreams, Krissy. 'Night, Josephine," he calls into the room, smirking at the grumbled response he gets before heading into his own room.

Krissy smiles after him, then turns and gets ready for bed. She falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

* * *

It's a pretty dreary Thursday morning.

Aiden and Josephine have already left for the university. Krissy is enjoying her third waffle—not even illness can dampen her love for the crispy treats—and idly watching the drizzle outside through the kitchen window.

"You have any plans for the day?" her aunt asks from the sink.

"Not really. Maybe I'll watch some TV."

At this, Catherine shakes her head. "Tell you what: why don't you come in to the store with me and hang out there? Books are a much better way to spend a day than TV is."

"Sure," Krissy shrugs. Her aunt's bookstore is one of her favorite places. The few times that she and her dad visited, she always ended up staying there for a few hours, reading whatever she thought looked interesting. The store is also home to the most comfortable armchair Krissy has ever had the pleasure of sitting in. Hanging out there for the day doesn't sound so bad.

When they arrive, Krissy inhales the scent of old books through her stuffy nose. Yep, she's missed this place. Her aunt hangs their coats up behind the counter and starts doing her pre-hours work.

Krissy starts to make her way to the back corner of the store, where the armchair is located, when her aunt stops her.

"I think I've got a space heater up in the storage room if you want to bring it down, sweetheart."

The girl nods and heads toward the stairs, climbing up to the second floor of the shop. She makes her way to the back, which takes up about half of the space, and pulls open the door.

For some reason, the light switch in this room was put in the middle of the wall. As Krissy goes to turn it on she bumps into some boxes, and a book slides to the floor with a thump. She flicks the switch and turns to pick up what she knocked over.

It's a paperback novel, maybe a few hundred pages in length, with the title _Supernatural _emblazoned across the cover. Underneath are pictured two muscular yet effeminate-looking men; one with a buzz-cut and one with long hair, both holding guns and standing in front of a car and a creepy looking house.

Krissy snorts at the ridiculousness of the cover. It looks like a cheesy romance novel, except those would usually have a girl on them rather than a second guy. Maybe it's a gay romance novel. She turns the volume over to read the back.

_Along a lonely California highway, a mysterious Woman in White lures men to their deaths…a terrifying phenomenon that may be Sam and Dean's first clue to their father's whereabouts._

Krissy blinks at the print. What? A woman in white, as in the ghost of a wife who'd been cheated on? And what was with the names of the main characters? Brothers named Sam and Dean?

She flips the book over again. This time she notices more details, like the bag of salt thrown over the shoulder of one of the men and the model of the car behind them.

It's a black '67 impala.

Holy shit.

Krissy stares at the book, mind whirling. This can't possibly be a coincidence. She looks at the box from which the book fell and sees that it's marked "Supernatural". Inside she finds more books with the same title and realizes that it's a series. She pulls the next several volumes out and reads the summaries, growing progressively more weirded-out.

She goes back to the first book and flips through the first few chapters. Suddenly, a word catches her eye. Stanford. She skims the lines around it, then looks up with a very freaked-out expression on her face.

Sam, the younger brother in the story, goes to Stanford. _Just like Dean had told her the first time they met._

Krissy gathers the volumes she had picked out and carries them downstairs.

"Uh, hey, Aunt Catherine?" she calls, walking towards the front counter while still staring at the cover of the book.

"Yes sweetheart?" Her aunt's eyebrows are raised when she comes into view.

"Um, what exactly is this?" Krissy asks her, holding up the first volume.

"Oh, that," Catherine nods when she sees the cover. "Those were written by a guy I knew in high school. His real name was Chuck Shurley. He died a few years ago and left me his collected works. He must have known about the store. I felt bad selling them, so I just kept them in the storage room. He wasn't much of a writer, anyway—from what I understand the books were more of an underground cult thing, never too popular. You're welcome to read them, though, if you like."

Krissy nods slowly. She has a feeling that her eyes are a little too wide to be normal, but she can't seem to do anything about it. How in the hell did Sam and Dean Winchester wind up as characters in some crappy horror series?

Her aunt is looking slightly concerned. "Krissy, you ok, sweetheart?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I'm, uh, I'll be in the back. Thanks." Ignoring her aunt's worried look, Krissy turns and walks back to the armchair. She stacks the _Supernatural_ books next to it and picks up the first volume, settles into the chair, and turns to the first page.

* * *

Her aunt is right: Chuck Shurley was not a good writer. It's ok, though, because the books are a quick read. Krissy plows through them, going back to the storage room to get more when she finishes with the stack she originally brought down. When Catherine comes back and tells her that it's closing time, she goes up and grabs several more copies to bring home with her. She comes back to the store the next day and the day after that, fully engrossed in the story that is unfolding beneath her eyes.

Behind the poor writing, the details are all there. Every monster hunt is exact in its facts, every ghost realistically portrayed. And the deeper plots, the terrible, world-threatening things; she's heard tidbits about them in the past from her dad and the gossip of other hunters, enough to know that what she's reading isn't fiction.

Everything is right there. Krissy is reading the biographies of the Winchester brothers.

* * *

Krissy is a tough girl. She can get over her emotions; distance herself from them enough to fake it. It's part of what makes her a good leader and a good hunter; she's an actress. Sometimes this concerns her, though.

She barely cried when her dad died. Even after Victor was salted and burned, crying just wasn't something she did. Even Josephine cries sometimes, and she's the toughest girl Krissy knows. Sometimes she worries that her emotions are stunted, that maybe something is wrong with her.

Krissy cannot stop crying.

Several times she had to put the _Supernatural_ books down and sob into her hands, the heartbreak and pain contained within their pages too great to overcome. Her aunt tried to convince her to stop reading them, but Krissy insisted that she had to finish, that she had to know what happened to the brothers stalked by destruction.

Now she's finished the entire series, but she knows that the story isn't complete. There's barely any mention of the Leviathan, which leads her to assume that Chuck kicked the bucket before he could finish writing about that particular disaster. Krissy is almost grateful—she's sure that the sacrifices Sam and Dean must have made to combat the monsters are unimaginable. She already knows that Bobby died only shortly before she first met the Winchesters, and she's glad she doesn't have to read through their grief. She's been through enough of that for four lifetimes.

And to think that all that tragedy has been squished into only one.

Her eyes are red-rimmed from crying, and there's snot pouring out of her nose. Her entire face is just wet, and she's given up trying to clean herself up. So Aiden and Josephine are justifiably upset when they return from their college visit and find her curled up on her bed, looking like someone just shot her dog.

"Krissy?!" Aiden is instantly at her side, pulling her into his lap and running his hands over her limbs to check for injuries. Josephine sits next to them and stares concernedly at her friend.

"Did something happen?" she asks, glancing around the room. Krissy can only shake her head no.

"Krissy, baby, what's wrong? Tell me what's wrong." Aiden is clearly panicking.

She starts sobbing anew, burying her face in his shoulder. "They—they _died _ and then—they had to come—come back—and it's not fair—it's not _fair_ Aiden—everyone died—" She's hiccupping her way through her explanation, which doesn't make much sense anyway. "Why is it—is it always them? Why do they have to—to sacrifice so—much? It's just so—so _sad_!"

Clearly at a loss, her boyfriend settles for stroking her hair, and Josephine wraps her arms around her in a tight hug.

"Hey," the older girl says, "whatever it is, we're here for you, Krissy. We've got your back." Aiden nods in agreement, and Krissy sniffs out a strangled thank you.

"I love you guys," she says suddenly, pulling away from Aiden's shoulder to look them both in the eyes. "I want you to know that no matter what, I love you both. Don't ever forget it. And don't ever do something stupid for me. Not ever. Got it?"

Her friends stare at her for a moment before nodding solemnly.

"Okay, Krissy. But that promise goes both ways, all right?" Aiden says.

"We love you too, Krissy. Don't worry about us," Josephine adds.

They envelop her in a tight hug, and Krissy hopes that she never has to face the agony of losing the people who are closest to her. She knows that, deep down, she would let the world burn rather than lose the ones she loves. She knows that she will never be able to sacrifice everything the way the Winchesters have.

She will mourn for them instead. She will never let herself forget the brothers who gave everything they had to keep the world from falling into destruction.

* * *

_A/N: Well, another late night one-shot. Hope you all enjoyed! I don't usually do Supernatural stories—there's not too much room for new plots without the creation of a dreaded Mary Sue, and I don't really like doing straight-up hunting fics. But generational respect lends itself nicely to storytelling, so…here we are! Review, por favor!_


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